Von Kempelen and his Discovery

by Edgar Allan Poe

AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of the
summary in 'Silliman's Journal,' with the detailed statement just
published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course, that in
offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen's discovery, I
have any design to look at the subject in a scientific point of view. My
object is simply, in the first place, to say a few words of Von Kempelen
himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the honor of a slight personal
acquaintance), since every thing which concerns him must necessarily, at
this moment, be of interest; and, in the second place, to look in a
general way, and speculatively, at the results of the discovery.

It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which I
have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a general
impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from the
newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it unquestionably
is, is unanticipated.

By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy' (Cottle and Munroe,
London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this illustrious
chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question, but had actually
made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in the very identical
analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempelen, who
although he makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt (I
say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to the
'Diary' for at least the first hint of his own undertaking.

The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,' which is now going the
rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a Mr.
Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little
apocryphal, for several reasons; although there is nothing either
impossible or very improbable in the statement made. I need not go into
details. My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon its
manner. It does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts, are seldom
so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day and date and precise
location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come upon the discovery he
says he did, at the period designated—nearly eight years ago—how
happens it that he took no steps, on the instant, to reap the immense
benefits which the merest bumpkin must have known would have resulted to
him individually, if not to the world at large, from the discovery? It
seems to me quite incredible that any man of common understanding could
have discovered what Mr. Kissam says he did, and yet have subsequently
acted so like a baby—so like an owl—as Mr. Kissam admits that
he did. By-the-way, who is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in
the 'Courier and Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must
be confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little
dependence is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if I were
not well aware, from experience, how very easily men of science are
mystified, on points out of their usual range of inquiry, I should be
profoundly astonished at finding so eminent a chemist as Professor Draper,
discussing Mr. Kissam's (or is it Mr. Quizzem's?) pretensions to the
discovery, in so serious a tone.

But to return to the 'Diary' of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was not
designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the writer, as any
person at all conversant with authorship may satisfy himself at once by
the slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for example, near the
middle, we read, in reference to his researches about the protoxide of
azote: 'In less than half a minute the respiration being continued,
diminished gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on
all the muscles.' That the respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only
clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The
sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the
respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually, and
were succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the
muscles.' A hundred similar instances go to show that the MS. so
inconsiderately published, was merely a rough note-book, meant only for
the writer's own eye, but an inspection of the pamphlet will convince
almost any thinking person of the truth of my suggestion. The fact is, Sir
Humphrey Davy was about the last man in the world to commit himself on
scientific topics. Not only had he a more than ordinary dislike to
quackery, but he was morbidly afraid of appearing empirical; so that,
however fully he might have been convinced that he was on the right track
in the matter now in question, he would never have spoken out, until he
had every thing ready for the most practical demonstration. I verily
believe that his last moments would have been rendered wretched, could he
have suspected that his wishes in regard to burning this 'Diary' (full of
crude speculations) would have been unattended to; as, it seems, they
were. I say 'his wishes,' for that he meant to include this note-book
among the miscellaneous papers directed 'to be burnt,' I think there can
be no manner of doubt. Whether it escaped the flames by good fortune or by
bad, yet remains to be seen. That the passages quoted above, with the
other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do not in
the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet remains to be seen
whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under any
circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind at large. That
Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it would
be folly to doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not to
'realize,' in time, by large purchases of houses and land, with other
property of intrinsic value.

In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the 'Home Journal,'
and has since been extensively copied, several misapprehensions of the
German original seem to have been made by the translator, who professes to
have taken the passage from a late number of the Presburg 'Schnellpost.'
'Viele' has evidently been misconceived (as it often is), and what the
translator renders by 'sorrows,' is probably 'lieden,' which, in its true
version, 'sufferings,' would give a totally different complexion to the
whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely guess, on my part.

Von Kempelen, however, is by no means 'a misanthrope,' in appearance, at
least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance with him was casual
altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in saying that I know him at all;
but to have seen and conversed with a man of so prodigious a notoriety as
he has attained, or will attain in a few days, is not a small matter, as
times go.

'The Literary World' speaks of him, confidently, as a native of Presburg
(misled, perhaps, by the account in 'The Home Journal') but I am pleased
in being able to state positively, since I have it from his own lips, that
he was born in Utica, in the State of New York, although both his parents,
I believe, are of Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way,
with Maelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short and
stout, with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but
pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect
in one of his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner noticeable
for bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as little like 'a
misanthrope' as any man I ever saw. We were fellow-sojourners for a week
about six years ago, at Earl's Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I
presume that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or
four hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the day, and
nothing that fell from him led me to suspect his scientific attainments.
He left the hotel before me, intending to go to New York, and thence to
Bremen; it was in the latter city that his great discovery was first made
public; or, rather, it was there that he was first suspected of having
made it. This is about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von
Kempelen; but I have thought that even these few details would have
interest for the public.

There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors afloat
about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about as much credit as
the story of Aladdin's lamp; and yet, in a case of this kind, as in the
case of the discoveries in California, it is clear that the truth may be
stranger than fiction. The following anecdote, at least, is so well
authenticated, that we may receive it implicitly.

Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his residence
at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been put to extreme shifts
in order to raise trifling sums. When the great excitement occurred about
the forgery on the house of Gutsmuth & Co., suspicion was directed
toward Von Kempelen, on account of his having purchased a considerable
property in Gasperitch Lane, and his refusing, when questioned, to explain
how he became possessed of the purchase money. He was at length arrested,
but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty.
The police, however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and thus
discovered that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and
invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that
labyrinth of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash name of the
'Dondergat.' Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a
garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called Flatzplatz,—and,
coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they imagined, in the midst of his
counterfeiting operations. His agitation is represented as so excessive
that the officers had not the slightest doubt of his guilt. After
hand-cuffing him, they searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears
he occupied all the mansarde.

Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten feet by
eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which the object has not
yet been ascertained. In one corner of the closet was a very small
furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of duplicate
crucible—two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these crucibles
was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not reaching up to the
aperture of the tube, which was close to the brim. The other crucible had
some liquid in it, which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously
dissipating in vapor. They relate that, on finding himself taken, Kempelen
seized the crucibles with both hands (which were encased in gloves that
afterwards turned out to be asbestic), and threw the contents on the tiled
floor. It was now that they hand-cuffed him; and before proceeding to
ransack the premises they searched his person, but nothing unusual was
found about him, excepting a paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing
what was afterward ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some
unknown substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All
attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far, failed, but that
it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted.

Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went through a
sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was found, to the
chemist's sleeping-room. They here rummaged some drawers and boxes, but
discovered only a few papers, of no importance, and some good coin, silver
and gold. At length, looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair
trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying carelessly
across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out from
under the bed, they found that, with their united strength (there were
three of them, all powerful men), they 'could not stir it one inch.' Much
astonished at this, one of them crawled under the bed, and looking into
the trunk, said:

'No wonder we couldn't move it—why it's full to the brim of old bits
of brass!'

Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good purchase, and
pushing with all his force, while his companions pulled with all theirs,
the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid out from under the bed, and its
contents examined. The supposed brass with which it was filled was all in
small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a pea to that of a dollar;
but the pieces were irregular in shape, although more or less
flat-looking, upon the whole, 'very much as lead looks when thrown upon
the ground in a molten state, and there suffered to grow cool.' Now, not
one of these officers for a moment suspected this metal to be any thing
but brass. The idea of its being gold never entered their brains, of
course; how could such a wild fancy have entered it? And their
astonishment may be well conceived, when the next day it became known, all
over Bremen, that the 'lot of brass' which they had carted so
contemptuously to the police office, without putting themselves to the
trouble of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not only gold—real gold—but
gold far finer than any employed in coinage-gold, in fact, absolutely
pure, virgin, without the slightest appreciable alloy.

I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen's confession (as far as it
went) and release, for these are familiar to the public. That he has
actually realized, in spirit and in effect, if not to the letter, the old
chimaera of the philosopher's stone, no sane person is at liberty to
doubt. The opinions of Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest
consideration; but he is by no means infallible; and what he says of
bismuth, in his report to the Academy, must be taken cum grano salis. The
simple truth is, that up to this period all analysis has failed; and until
Von Kempelen chooses to let us have the key to his own published enigma,
it is more than probable that the matter will remain, for years, in statu
quo. All that as yet can fairly be said to be known is, that 'Pure gold
can be made at will, and very readily from lead in connection with certain
other substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.'

Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate results
of this discovery—a discovery which few thinking persons will
hesitate in referring to an increased interest in the matter of gold
generally, by the late developments in California; and this reflection
brings us inevitably to another—the exceeding inopportuneness of Von
Kempelen's analysis. If many were prevented from adventuring to
California, by the mere apprehension that gold would so materially
diminish in value, on account of its plentifulness in the mines there, as
to render the speculation of going so far in search of it a doubtful one—what
impression will be wrought now, upon the minds of those about to emigrate,
and especially upon the minds of those actually in the mineral region, by
the announcement of this astounding discovery of Von Kempelen? a discovery
which declares, in so many words, that beyond its intrinsic worth for
manufacturing purposes (whatever that worth may be), gold now is, or at
least soon will be (for it cannot be supposed that Von Kempelen can long
retain his secret), of no greater value than lead, and of far inferior
value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to speculate
prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery, but one thing may be
positively maintained—that the announcement of the discovery six
months ago would have had material influence in regard to the settlement
of California.

In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise of two
hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly twenty-five per cent.
that of silver.